New service SimpleDine now accessible to IU students

As Web sites like eBay and Froogle supplant shopping malls, a new market for online purchasing is surging. The expansive Internet use by students, coupled with students' tendencies to regularly eat delivery, has invited a new online dining business to IU.\nThe growing Web site www.simpledine.com, now offers IU students a new option for ordering food online. \n"It all started in 2002 with an idea," said Chris McAleenan, who helped create SimpleDine. "Looking up restaurant phone numbers was easy enough; why not take it to the next level?"\nSimpleDine currently offers online access to three restaurants around campus: Domino's, Peterson's Restaurant and Swing-In Pizza. To promote its kick-off, SimpleDine offers 50 percent discounts on selected items at participating restaurants.\nThe service promises to add more restaurants often, and McAleenan said students using SimpleDine should check back frequently.\n"We're always negotiating with restaurants to get our prices down," he said. "We know price is a big deal for students."\nCafé Pizzaria owner Larry Webb, whose business was featured on the SimpleDine press release, said he never agreed to a deal with any online ordering company, but is open to the idea.\n"Everyone is telling me that (online) is the way to go," he said. "Maybe we need to get on one of those sites."\nNoam Hoffenberg, manager of Jimmy John's, rebuffed the idea of online ordering for his business in the near future. Locations close to campus, he added, sometimes have "lines out the door."\n"Our stores have done nothing but improve," he said. "People like dealing with people as opposed to computer systems. We want to keep traditions, but you never know what will happen in the future."\nHe also added that Jimmy John's does its own marketing and was not setup to accept computer orders.\nAnother business owner, José "Don Chuy" Salazarof Don Chuy's, complained the fees would be too much for him to afford when coupled with credit card-use fees.\nSimpleDine's arrival brings new online competition to Bloomington. www.CampusFood.com began giving students the option to order online at the beginning of the 2004-2005 academic year, and now offers up to nine restaurants on any given night. CampusFood's Bloomington manager Rob Saunders said the organization now averages between 40 and 50 orders a night on campus. Saunders also added that the amount of business they do is almost always based on how long they've been established on a campus. \nCampusFood is now available to about 250 campuses. It averages about 400 orders a night at its first location, the University of Pennsylvania, where it offers 37 businesses to students.\nWhile SimpleDine promotes its simplicity and security, CampusFood advocates its established popularity and marketing.\n"Restaurants are attracted to us, not only because we are established, but because of our marketing potential," Saunders said.\nMany students don't know about the ability to order online.\nSenior Dustin Wessel said he had never heard about the online options.\n"I'd be interested, possibly," he said, "if I got some sort of deal for being a student."\n-- Contact Staff Writer Sam Nissen at scnissen@indiana.edu.